When Maneesh Media was started 20 years back, it was started with the idea of writing about the unheard of success stories of the Indian diaspora. We never knew these stories that amazed us could inspire others. We started with publishing coffee-table books, gradually getting head-on with personalized books as well. Getting to do personalized books for individual families of extreme name and fame was new to us, an aspect we didn’t think of. As we gradually got to know several among the Indian diaspora, some of them accomplishing some unimaginable things, and often started referring back to them in our drawing-room conversations, our guests went back smiling and would thank us later. Why? Little did we know what inspiration and motivation we were unleashing! Did we ever think lives of a handful of Indian diaspora could be so motivational?...

A different species is always an excitement to study. For me, books too have different species; people call it different genres. Among all the genres, I find reading coffee table books the easiest. They are big and beautiful; they have a lot of pictures. They are a complete show-off thing. Place a few in your living room and you are set to make a mark. These books of beauty indicate of your personality. The coffee-table books that you have talk about you, your thoughts, your aspirations, your inspirations. Any guest at your home, workplace, restaurant lounge, hotel lobby, or your shop is sure to pick up the book. They might not read it but simply flip the pages and form an impression of your’s in their head. The conversation hence on will a different essence to it. It would now...

With the current situation, do we imagine getting back into the same world that we were in? All these days of lockdown have taught us to lead a minimalistic lifestyle. And as we live minimalistically, it is wonderful how the nature has revived itself. Conscious, careful, cautious are the new buzz words for human lives, while rebirth, rejuvenation etc are for nature. As nature rejuvenates, human lives rejuvenate as well. How about learning about making the most of the less we have? Here we talk about some coffee table books available online as well that we found meaningful especially for these difficult times. This is Home – The Art of Simple Living (Natalie Walton) A coffee table book online about interior design but with the idea of basic principles of happy living incorporated into homes is a well-researched book. It...

Scenario 1: Last minute panic at work. Boss wants you to stay longer, you want to rush out. You try to hurriedly finish it up, but once again… you stay back! You are at work the next morning trying to finish all your tasks. You somehow manage to, though a bit late. You drive, or may be take a cab, to your favourite bookstore, but the traffic delays you and the bookstore is closed by the time you reach. Anxiety on day 3 is at its peak and you just want to buy the new book. Will you buy it today? Will you sneak out? Anyhow, it has to be today! It has already been three days since the release of the new book. Scenario 2: A new book by your favourite author is released and you want to read...

Ever since the Corona Lockdown came into force across the country, the weather has turned out to be an absolute charmer, although true to its natural temperament of caprice, impulse and uncertainty. Yes, uncertainty is usually a key factor in the way weather tends to behave. But since the last two-three months, we’ve been experiencing equal doses of sun and rain, which follows a predictable pattern on a daily basis. Harsh glare and searing temperatures during the day, by late afternoon the skies are heavily overcast invariably followed by dust or thunderstorms and eventually sharp showers with an appreciable drop in temperatures. Book publishers secretly will be very happy about this change: the better the climate, the more the reading. I am sure they’d love this predictable climate to continue till long after the lockdown! But experts are unable to...

They say that a picture or a visual image is worth more than a thousand words. That is why long before speech and writing became integral communication tools that gave civilisations a quantum leap, primitive man just drew everything he wanted to ‘talk about’. A lot of what we know about early man is largely because of these drawings and paintings, evolving along the way as hieroglyphics, pictographs – and finally writing. Perhaps coffee-table books follow the same principle, making their content more visual than written, so that it is more entertaining and less demanding intellectually. For those who wish to self-publish online, it would be good to look into the various aspects of publishing coffee table books. Because coffee table books are usually oversized in comparison to conventional books, they turned out to be ‘misfits’ in bookshelves and had to...

I don’t know how to begin telling this story. It’s a strange and mysterious tale, almost like a ghost story. But then again I wonder if there is such a thing as ghosts of birds and animals, or of humans, for that matter. I mean, one can’t be too sure about such things. But I do know that it’s just the kind of stuff people might like to put inside autobiographical books. But let’s begin at the beginning. This incident happened a few months before I came away from Muscat. I don’t know where it came from; it seemed to have materialized out of thin air. All I know is that one moment it wasn’t there and then in the next instant there it was,  perched in a rather curious  and unsure sort of way on the parapet wall of...

I’m not quite sure what others may have to say about online books , but my feelings on the subject are clear, simple and straight forward: Give me a real, solid book any day, one that I can hold in my hand and feel; virtual reality just isn’t my kind of thing, I want to see my books in the real world, in one sweeping glance on a mahogany bookshelf, in my study perhaps, so comforting, reassuring and so inviting. Otherwise, I suppose the next best place for them would be the library, where there would be books stacked from floor to ceiling in endless rows. Ah, what an overwhelming and heart-warming sight; very much similar to what a lost traveler, hopelessly staggering about in the desert would feel, on suddenly finding an oasis in the middle of nowhere. But let...

A couple of days ago, a news channel report said the Rajasthan government planned to put in place a door-to-door delivery system of vegetables, dry ration, milk and fruits. This is certainly a very positive and pro-active step in the face of problems brought on by the Corona virus. Shut inside homes, access to a vast array of commodities or services, has been restricted to the very, bare minimum. The recent announcement of a further extension in lockdown, makes it imperative for a smooth distribution system. Under the circumstances to be able to buy books online is a big boon indeed. But there are some other things which are equally important. For instance, what about laundry services and barber shops. There are many people who seem to shy away from the onerous task of doing their own laundry. Apart from...

There was a time when biographers had carte blanche authority to depict a man’s life exactly the way it was – warts and all. The idea behind it was to present before readers a true rendition of a man’s life, without any frills or embellishments. But somewhere along the way, a new trend has emerged. At its core, it still remains a biography for all practical purposes, but with a much more beautiful face and lots of make-up of course; picture perfect, one might say. Perhaps if one were to go through some coffee table books online, they may come across specimens of this interesting sub-genre. Yes, this sub-genre has a name. They are called personalized book. These are customized and tailor-made books, where the main characters’ personas are shaped by their own perceptions of themselves. Money is of no...